More Avatar movie casting fail

[telophase]

kyuuketsukirui points out a casting call for extras for the upcoming Avatar movie to play martial artists, soldiers, etc. Which says, in part:

You're asked to dress casually or in the traditional costume of your family's ethnic background.

To which kyuuketsukirui replies:

And I love the weasel-wording of this casting call. They don't ever say they're looking for people of color for these roles, but when they say you should dress in "the traditional costume of your family's ethnic background", they sure don't mean kilts and lederhosen.

And now my brain is irresistibly filled with images of extras showing up wearing kilts, lederhosen, wooden shoes, Morris-dancing gear, cowboy hats and boots, dirndls, peplos, and berets.

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

It's just more of that "white people don't have ethnicity" thing. The person who wrote that probably didn't even think of white people as having "ethnic costumes" in the first place.

I'm mostly Swedish and German, so maybe I should wear Lucia candles with my lederhosen.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm English, Scottish, German, and French. I feel I should come as World War I.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Yeah, I am actually a whole lotta different stuff, too, but German and Swedish are defo the majority. I could add a kilt over my lederhosen, one of those tall funny hats the guards at Buckingham Palace wear (under my Lucia headdress, natch), a beret perched on top of that, and some moccasins. I'm kinda grooving on this outfit. I'm sure it's just what the casting folks are looking for.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I think you have a distinct advantage because your national dress is ON FIRE.

(My dad's side is Cajun, and I have a family tree going back to the 17th century, when they were in Germany. Once they got here, all the German boys married French girls, so the tree is full of names like Johann Pierre.)

[helen-keeble.livejournal.com]

Heeeeee!

(I just had to read the comment thread to my husband to explain why I was chortling)

[trobadora]

And now my brain is irresistibly filled with images of extras showing up wearing kilts, lederhosen, wooden shoes, Morris-dancing gear, cowboy hats and boots, dirndls, peplos, and berets.

You read my brain on this one.

(Seriously, WTF?! Grace is absolutely right about the level of fail on this boat.)

[bitpig.livejournal.com]

We white people have ethnicity just like other people do. We are also mostly ethnic mixes -- German, French, what have you -- just as others are ethnically mixed. To my mind, the easiest way for a white individual to show ethnic pride is to emphasize the ethnicity associated with his or her surname. My surname is of German origin (my dad was adopted -- his birth name was Sapp), so I self-identify as an American of German ancestry. And since I have typically south German features, build, and coloration, it fits.

Since white people are allowed to be ethnic now, let's all pick an ethnicity and stick with it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

That was pretty much the point - Hollywood whitewashed the casting of the main characters in Avatar, who were all fairly obviously non-white in appearance and cultural background, but they're now weaseling the wording around wanting non-white people in the roles of extras.

Why Not Make Him a Black Kung Fu Guy?

[bitpig.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. Sorry for the rehash!

As for Avatar, it's important to remember that Hollywood isn't in the business of making movies; Holloywood is the the business of making MONEY. Remind me sometime and I'll show you the screenplay for Disney's proposed live-action STAR BLAZERS movie. Warning: don't eat anything that day.

Re: Why Not Make Him a Black Kung Fu Guy?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've heard the story about the screenplay for The Warrior's Apprentice straight from the mouth of the author of the book, who has a copy. It's hideous. The main character of the novel is 4'10" with brittle bones, and the screenplay did bend so far as to make him shorter than average for his planet's male population and to have that be a terrible complex for him.

His height? 5'10".

Re: Why Not Make Him a Black Kung Fu Guy?

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Epic fail.

Re: Why Not Make Him a Black Kung Fu Guy?

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Yes okay but Avatar is a breakaway hit, isn't it? Why would it not be more important to not fuck with the winning formula?? That, among other things, boggles me.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

I was trying to think of what the 'traditional costume of my family's ethnic background' was, but all I could come up with were sumptuary laws, conical hats or maybe a yellow star pinned to the front of my shirt. I'm thinking...no.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If I look around at my friends and extrapolate a shared ethnic costume from them, the Modern American Gaming Geek dress seems to include Converse hightops, T-shirts with anime or comic characters or pithy sayings on them, ripped jeans, and long brown hair for the woman and scraggly beards for the men.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

See, geeks are more of a cross-cultural group, not particularly an ethnic one. Then again, I never took cultural anthropology classes for a reason.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It was a joke?

[seajules]

...I am tempted to make another post about white ethnicity and the Othering of the very concept of ethnicity. Except that would take away from the main point here, which is that Hollywood SUCKS.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

There are some things we all can agree on, eh?

[sutlers.livejournal.com]

I GUESS I NEED TO COME DRESSED LIKE THIS.



DANG. THOSE SEQUINS ITCH LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I MAY COME IN THIS



BUT IT'S GONNA BE HELL SEWING ALL THOSE BUTTONS ON IN TIME.

[ginkage.livejournal.com]

Morris: The Last Bell-Jingler?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I double dog dare you to write that.

[ginkage.livejournal.com]

Hey, I could've come up with Morris: The Last HankyWaver....

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I can always escalate to the triple dog dare!

[ginkage.livejournal.com]

It might take me the next year. I can only barely write my way out of a paper bag. ;)

I'd be ten times more likely to find a way to draw it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I WOULD PAY YOU ONE MILLION INTERNET DOLLARS.





Not that you are actually to take note of my badgering if you don't want. :)

[ginkage.livejournal.com]

*steeples fingers* Weeee shall seeeeee....

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

But where will I get a flat cap and a whippet from this late in the day? Damn my Yorkshire roots!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It was funny - my family has been in the US for generations, yet when I went to the UK for the first time, it was filled with older people who looked - and dressed - exactly like my grandparents. XD

[chisotahn]

fffffffffffffffffftfail.

I could show up in my Flying Nun-esque Dutch hat! It would be excellent! (I'm not even Dutch, I just was raised there. And those hats are much interesting than... uh, carrying a harpoon, I guess. Whaling isn't particularly constrained to one ethnic group, I don't think.)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

nebroadwe posted another piece (http://nebroadwe.livejournal.com/101490.html) of the casting call, in which Koreans were asked to wear kimonos; Belgians, lederhosen. Oh, baby.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Okay!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I know my family tartan. If I was in Philly, I'd show up in it.